pouët.net

i'm considering to start coding a 3D exporter for my little 3d engine. i'm hesitating between softimage xsi (which could have a great potential because of the xsi mod tool free release) or 3dsmax.

i won't have time to code both exporters so
so which tool is your favorite ?

thx

xsi should be the best one

so far XSI is my favorite

you should definitely take a look at some unusual tools ( not-polygon-based ) like rhino before you make a choice. they are extremely easy in use ( well the only disadvantage is they're mostly oriented for smooth-shaped models ) and they can export in max and other formats.

so if rhino can export in max and other format, it's still the same problem: code a max or OTHER TOOL exporter ...

anyway, what i want is to stick to the tool the potential 3d artist will use:

imagine the case that my max exporter is ready, but the artist i work with uses softimage XSI, maybe the conversion tools between the 2 software won't enable to convert everything ...

the right program to write the exporter for is whichever one your artist wants to use.

max or maya is probably the most popular these days (at least among games/demoscene 3d artists, if not film artists).

Anim8or

smash > i agree

but when you don't have an artist and you want to convince someone to work with you, but you don't have too much time to give to democoding ... if you choose the right tool at the beginning you'll have a change ;)

i mean you'll have a chance to convince someone to work with you

find an artist fss :)

well : MAX is very popular but for some reasons i fail to understand it seems to be a real pain to code an exporter for max ....
The ideal exporter is the easiest one to use

nytrik, afaik that improved a lot in max 6/7.

Max is a swell tool to use but writing plugins for it requires some amount of ... tolerance to get it done. Discreet released a specific 'game exporter sdk' to ease the pain (which also had bugs).

Anyway, after the third plugin you're getting used to the max infrastructure :)

Iam having just this problem atm..

At the moment i make all 3d in SketchUP wich is a great 3dsketch utility, and after the scene has been made i import it to 3dsmax and put lousy 3dsmax materials on it.. Iam gonna try to find a better alternative than 3dsmax but atm it looks like the best "compatible" 3danimation/scenecomposer program there is but it has one major flaw:
it sucks bigtimes.

Iam not sure if Maya is any better than Max when it comes to scenecomposition/realtime compatible materials etc.. In 3dsmax you can always make your own materialsystem wich works with shaders etc.

I've never tried XSI or Maya personally but heard good stuff about them both... But never havent looked into SDKs of any of those, Maya because the sdk itself isnt/wasnt vc2003 compatible, XSI because i havent tried to get hold of a copy...

What i basically want:
Support for import of .3ds as crappy as it is, its still the format you can rely on for exporting/import raw geometry from most 3dmodellers.

Good material system or easy to replace. And i mean in realtime purposes, no need for feutures wich cant be used in a realtime engine.

Good animation/spline support, and good as in easy to make a WORKING replayer for.

Good skinning handling etc..

Any input will be weighted by the tolerence of my kidney.

i personally use maya, but from what i was told by others xsi is the most versatile. have'nt used max for some years. some people say it's quite kludgy nowadays. (they never did a rewrite after max)

i'll try to have a look at softimage XSI
my first goal is to be able to play with character animation / biped stuff

It has nothing to do with the software that is used to make the 3D models and animations, and everything to do with what format is exported from that application. You can export pretty much any format you can think of from 3DS Max providing you have the plugin to do so. Therefore consider which format meets your needs.

The one advantage of making a playback engine for the max and xsi formats is you can avoid some problems with crappy exporters. Then again, that depends on your skill level.

Cheers, and interesting question.

Wings3D... and it is free.

from Wings3D's website :


Then, how can you compare professionnal tools to an open source modeler in version 0.98.26 ???

oh yeah, it's free, open source, great, and like a lot of open source projects, it may die before reaching the 1.0 state... no thanks.

(please not that i'm not a windows nor a linux zealot, i just face the reality, so please stick to the topic :) )

Wings3d is a joke. Really.

Depends what you use it for. For demoscene projects, I think it is very well suited.

maya, 3d studio max and lightwave are pretty much the defacto standard for sceners these days, it seems.

USE LIGHTWAVE ON A*M*I*G*A!

OR IMAGINE IN DOS!

OR IMAGINE ON A*M*I*G*A!